More than 1,400 dead as magnitude-7.8 quake rocks Nepal

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[h=4]More than 1,400 dead as magnitude-7.8 quake rocks Nepal[/h]A powerful earthquake — the country's worst in 80 years — rocked mountainous Nepal on Saturday, killing nearly 1,000 people and leveling buildings and centuries-old temples. Dozens if not hundreds remained trapped under mounds of rubble.

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The death toll is in the thousands following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Nepal. The quake also sparked an avalanche at Mount Everest. Rescue workers continue to search for missing and trapped people. Wochit


Nepalese people walk past collapsed buildings at Lalitpur, on the outskirts of Katmandu, on April 25, 2015, after a powerful magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck Nepal.(Photo: Prakash Mathema, AFP/Getty Images)


A powerful earthquake — the country's worst in 80 years — rocked mountainous Nepal on Saturday, killing more than 1,400 people and leveling buildings and centuries-old temples. Dozens if not hundreds remained trapped under mounds of rubble.
Hospitals in the capital of Katmandu were so crowded that many of the injured were treated outside in the open, according to local media. The magnitude-7.8 quake, which shook a wide swath of northern India and Tibet, also triggered avalanches in the Himalayas, killing at least 10 people on Mount Everest.
Nepal police said at least 1,457 people were killed.
USA TODAY
At least 10 dead, others missing as Nepal quake rocks Mount Everest




The dead included at least 256 people in Katmandu alone, according to myrepublica.com, a Nepal news agency, quoting the Home Affairs Ministry. An emergency Cabinet meeting designated 29 districts as crisis zone, the ministry said.
Around 180 bodies were pulled from the ruins of the nine-story Dharhara tower in the center of the capital, China's official Xinhua News Agency reports. It said about 200 were feared trapped in the rubble of the tower in the city's historic Basantapur Durbar Square.
City hospitals were quickly overwhelmed. Dozens of people were gathered in the parking lot of Norvic International Hospital, where thin mattresses were spread on the ground for patients rushed outside, some wearing hospital pajamas. A woman with a bandage on her head sat in a set of chairs pulled from the hospital waiting room.
Doctors and nurses had hooked up some patients to IV drips in the parking lot, or were giving people oxygen.
Outside Nepal, at least 34 were killed in India, 12 in Tibet and two in Bangladesh. Two Chinese citizens died in the Nepal-China border. Given the scale of the destruction, the death toll is almost certain to rise, said Laxmi Dhakal, Nepal's Home Ministry official.
The quake struck before noon about 50 miles northwest of Katmandu in an area that the U.S. Geological Survey calls one of the most seismically hazardous regions on Earth. It is at the spot where the India plate collides with the Eurasia plate in a process that has created the towering Himalayas.
Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat said on Twitter that the quake had destroyed about 90 per cent of some 1,000 home and huts in the Laprak and Barpak villages near the epicenter.
The quake, which was felt as far away as Lahore in Pakistan, Lhasa in Tibet, and in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was followed by about 15 aftershocks, including one registered at a magnitude 6.6.
USA TODAY
Nepal quake occurred at major plate boundary




The humanitarian aid group Oxfam said it was sending a team of technical experts from Britain to provide clean water, sanitation and emergency food supplies.
"Communication is currently very difficult," said Cecilia Keizer, Oxfam country director in Nepal. "Telephone lines are down and the electricity has been cut off, making charging mobile phones difficult. The water is also cut off."
Keizer said the quake had destroyed many of Katmandu's old houses and that at least one large apartment block had collapsed.
"People are gathered in their thousands in open spaces and are scared, as there have been several aftershocks," she said.
Pushpa Das, a laborer, ran from his house when the first quake struck but could not escape a collapsing wall that injured his arm.
"It was very scary. The earth was moving … I am waiting for treatment but the (hospital) staff is overwhelmed," he said, gingerly holding his right arm with his left hand. As he spoke, dozens of people showed up with injuries, mostly from falling bricks.
In Winchester, Va., Kriti Hada, a 20-year-old nursing student from Nepal who is attending Shenandoah University, said her sister in Nepal managed to get through by phone.
Although she, her mother and another sister were unhurt, they were frightened by the intensity and duration of the aftershocks, which are continuing, Hada said.
Hada said her relatives, like hundreds of others who survived the initial quake, were remaining out of doors until the seismic activity ceases. "We have very limited open spaces and they are surrounded by tall buildings that are also fragile," Hada said.
USA TODAY
The world's deadliest earthquakes in past decade




Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called a meeting of top government officials to review the damage and disaster preparedness in parts of India that felt strong tremors. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif offered "all possible help" that Nepal may need.
Within hours, an Indian Air Force C-130 landed at at Katmandu's airport with 39 disaster relief workers and 3.5 metric tons of supplies, according to a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense.
A senior mountaineering guide, Ang Tshering, said an avalanche swept the face of Everest after the earthquake, and government officials said at least 30 people were injured.
Tshering of the Nepal Mountaineering Association said the avalanche apparently occurred between the Khumbu Icefall, a rugged area of collapsed ice and snow, and the base camp, where most climbing expeditions have their main camps.

People free a man from the rubble of a destroyed building after an earthquake hit Nepal, in Katmandu, on April 25, 2015.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Narendra Shrestha, European Pressphoto Agency)

As the ground began to shake, several buildings collapsed in the center of the capital, the ancient Old Kathmandu, including centuries-old temples and towers, said resident Prachanda Sual.
Among them was the Dharahara Tower, one of Katmandu's landmarks built by Nepal's royal rulers in the 1800s and a UNESCO-recognized historical monument. It was reduced to rubble and there were reports of people trapped underneath. The Katmandu Valley is densely populated with nearly 2.5 million people, and the quality of buildings is often poor.
Dhany Osman, an editor with The Straits Times of Singapore said he was at Katmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport when the quake struck.
"As bits of the ceiling began to fall, passengers who were waiting for their flights began to panic and started running out of the terminal, with some tripping over each other," he wrote. "Despite the nearest exit door being just 10 (yards) away, a group of Nepali men smashed open a glass panel and climbed out of it. I tried telling people around me to calm down but they kept shoving each other to get out."
Although the extent of the damage and the scale of the disaster are yet to be ascertained, the quake will likely put a huge strain on the resources of this poor country best known for Everest, the highest mountain in the world. The economy of Nepal, a nation of 27.8 million people, is heavily dependent on tourism, principally trekking and Himalayan mountain-climbing.
Robin Trygg, a climber, was in a base camp on the Cho Oyu mountain at an altitude of 18,480 feet when he felt the quake.
"We were sitting in the tent and drinking tea when all of a sudden the earth began shaking. We didn't understand what happened," he told the Swedish news agency TT by telephone.

DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE IN NEPALRaw: Powerful earthquake rocks Nepal | 00:58A powerful, 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook Nepal's capital and the densely populated Kathmandu Valley before noon Saturday, collapsing houses and leveling centuries-old temples in the worst temblor in the Himalayan nation in over 80 years. (April 25) AP

DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE IN NEPALMassive earthquake hits Nepal, killing hundreds | 00:48Saturday's 7.8 magnitude earthquake is the worst to hit Nepal in more than 80 years.
Video provided by Newsy Newslook

DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE IN NEPALNepal rocked by magnitude-7.8 earthquake | 01:27The death toll continues to rise after a magnitude-7.8 earthquake hit Nepal on Saturday. The quake destroyed homes and centuries-old temples. Neighboring countries also felt shocks and reported casualties. Wochit

DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE IN NEPALHundreds dead in Nepal earthquake | 00:42A massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed more than 900 people Saturday as it ripped through large parts of Nepal, toppling office blocks and towers in Kathmandu and triggering a deadly avalanche that hit Everest base camp.
Video provided by AFP Newslook

DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE IN NEPALDozens of students injured in India following Nepal quake | 00:45Dozens of students are among those injured in northeastern India as a result of the massive earthquake that hit the region include Nepal, China and Bangladesh.
Video provided by AFP Newslook

DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE IN NEPALNepal earthquake sparks avalanche at Mount Everest | 01:11The death toll is in the thousands following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Nepal. The quake also sparked an avalanche at Mount Everest. Rescue workers continue to search for missing and trapped people. Wochit

DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE IN NEPALStrong tremors felt in India as massive quake hits region | 00:41A massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal with strong tremors felt across the Himalayan nation and large parts of India and Bangladesh.
Video provided by AFP Newslook

DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE IN NEPALNepal quake: Hundreds dead, Everest shaken | 01:13A powerful earthquake struck Nepal Saturday, killing at least 1,180 people and triggering a deadly avalanche on Mount Everest. It was the worst quake to hit Nepal in decades. (April 25) AP





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A Swedish woman, Jenny Adhikari, who lives in Nepal, told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that she was riding a bus in the town of Melamchi when the earth began to move.
"A huge stone crashed only about 20 (yards) from the bus," she was quoted as saying. "All the houses around me have tumbled down. I think there are lot of people who have died," she told the newspaper by telephone. Melamchi is about 30 miles northeast of Kathmandu.
Although a major plate boundary with a history of large- to great-sized earthquakes, large earthquakes in this area are rare in the documented historical era, the USGS reports. Over the past century, just four events of magnitude 6.0 or larger have occurred within about 150 miles of Saturday's earthquake.
One, a magnitude-6.9 earthquake in August 1988 about 150 miles to the southeast of the latest quake, caused close to 1,500 fatalities, according to the USGS.
The largest magnitude-8.0 event known as the 1934 Nepal-Bihar earthquake, occurred in a similar location to the 1988 event. It severely damaged Kathmandu, and is thought to have caused around 10,600 deaths.
An earthquake's power increases by 10 times with each increase in the number of its scale. A magnitude-7.0 quake is capable of widespread and heavy damage while a magnitude-8.0 can cause tremendous damage.
This means Saturday's earthquake — the same magnitude as the one that hit San Francisco in 1906 — was 22 times more powerful than the 7.0 quake that devastated Haiti in 2010.
Contributing: Doyle Rice, McLean, Va.; the Associated Press
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